Vote SNP, get Tory

[bythestairs]

Nicola Sturgeon has shown herself to be a charismatic politican who, understandably, is drawing a lot of support. But is she really going to get a chance to influence the next government?

The Conservatives are already declaring themselves the winners, if they get the most seats which the current polls are just giving them. The relationship between Cameron and Clegg is seamless. And, perhaps strongest of all, the SNP have the same media backers as the Conservatives. Why would that be?

Is it better to have Nicola Sturgeon as a heckler a long way from Westminster or to change the current government and have a strong representation of the SNP at Scottish level?

I don't

I think everyone who wants Torys out should vote Labour. Even if they normally vote Green / Libdem/ SNP. It's such a close election and the important thing is not having Cameron and Osbourne back in.

What is Kezia doing about Ian Smart?

The Tories are deliberately encouraging SNP votes by hamming it up north of the border. More votes for SNP means fewer for Labour, helps them.

Suspect that's also why the Sun came out for Tories and SCottish Sun for SNP.

Ghoul, that doesn't make sense in a Lib Dem/SNP marginal. I want a Labour government, but impossible to know how to support this with my vote. The Lib Dems will side with anyone (so could end up Tory) and Labour say they won't work with SNP.

yes hannahouse, the SNP who are providing free school meals for kids whose parents are dropping them off to school in range rovers. Progressive my arse.

Thought I'd check in this morning to see what's happening on the threads, and see if the Tory brigade are still stirring up SNP voters....seems they still are!

Voted just a short time ago, that's it done now. Have everything crossed. Vote SNP, get SNP!

midnight means testing for every single policy in Scotland is too expensive and would end up costing more. It's not cost effective to means test school meals, prescriptions, etc. I thought that would have been startlingly obvious.

but they'll be means tested when they get to p4 anyway. I would have thought that would be startlingly obvious too.

"I think it would be a big mistake to underestimate Scotland. It has proved to be a very poor strategy for Labour."

Too right YNK.

and I don't think I suggested anywhere that 'every single policy' should be means-tested, did I?

"but they'll be means tested when they get to p4 anyway."

But the Scottish Government have reduced the amount of means testing which is surely a good thing wrt school meals? It's just p1-3 that are entitled to free school meals just now. Keeping means testing to a minimum is better than means testing everything left right and centre.

Infants in England have free school meals also...or is that ok because it's a lib dem policy?

SNP voter IQ test: which of the two options do you prefer:-

A) A Conservative government with more SNP MPs in Westminster?
B) A Labour government with less SNP MPs in Westminster?

The people who oppose SNP aren't all Tories as you must know.

The SNP ultimate plan reminds me strongly of "Thatcherism":

Get rid of the systems you oppose on ideological grounds without any proper thought as to what you will put in the scorched earth following your great victory.

I loathe "isms", they destroy more than they create.

tabulahrasa no imo, it isn't. wrt Scotland, if I was a progressive politician, I'd be spending the money on breakfast clubs for children that really need them, on trying to improve literacy standards, or on not cutting thousands of college places. But hey. In blowinahoolie's strange world that seems to make me a Tory.
I'd be interested to know how much is saved by not means-testing meals for P1-3 compared to the cost of providing them (including, in my school's case, extensive building work to accommodate it's).

As I've said in numerous occasions, I don't think the SNP are a perfect party, no party is. They have lots of work still to do, like many of the parties. You cannot please all of the people all of the time. Yes, we do need more college places, I agree. There is still much to be done regardless of who is in power.

Do you honestly expect Scotland to run smoothly all of the time midnightexpress? I don't. I am aware it takes time for things to improve.

Do you honestly think all those who oppose the SNP are Tories, blowinahoolie, or are you just blowinalotofhotair?

I don't think universal free school meals are a fantastic idea and I don't agree with the council tax freeze...but on balance I prefer SNP policies over labour's so I'm voting SNP.

I'll either end up with an SNP MP or a labour one...either of which will completely stick to the party line (because that's what my labour MP does) so I'm voting for the party line I most agree with.

If that means that labour doesn't have enough MPs to form government, then that's how democracy works and maybe they should consider rethinking their policies.

If it was a genuine two party system, then yes, I'd vote labour, but it's not and I get to choose.

blowinahoolie of course I don't think it will always run smoothly, but I do question the SNP's claims to be a progressive party, when the evidence suggests otherwise to me. They've already had 7 years at the helm here.

tabulahrasa, fair enough, each to his own.

I don't much like my Labour MP, but I really want to get rid of DC, because I really fear for the disadvantaged across the UK if they get back in, and a vote for Labour seems to offer the best chance of achieving that.

I see the nasty nationalist mask has slipped with a few people. I'd love an example of an SNP policy that people like.

We are talking about a party who in 7 years in power have not put through ONE progressive, redistributive policy. They are very good if you like your middle class giveaways right enough whilst our children suffer falling literacy, 100k college places are lost, A&Es are in crisis and our councils are on their knees.

So by all means keep kidding yourselves on this is about anything other than punishing the majority of the country to didn't want to break away from the rest of the UK.

We will have to disagree on that one tabulahrasa. When I was at primary school, there was a boy in our class whose family lived down the railway cutting somewhere, who wore holey gymn shoes even in wet weather and who couldn't afford school meals. The other children weren't sympathetic to him they laughed at him.

I have no idea what he ate on a day to day basis but free school meals would at least have put a hot meal inside him every week day.

It's universal free school meals that I don't agree with, not any.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds always got free meals anyway. By now extending that to all P1-3s, money needs to be saved elsewhere, for example by closing breakfast clubs. So that child, who would have got 2 free meals, is now faced with having to come to school with no breakfast. I don't call that progressive.